This year’s Great British Bake Off is going back in time – to the 80s.
The show is set to feature 80s, as well as Japan themed weeks – and will be the most unpredictable year yet according to the judges.
They insist viewers will find it impossible to pick the winner based on early episodes, something that may have been possible in some previous series.
Prue Leith said: “I kept backing the wrong horse really. I kept thinking so-and-so would win and then...you know[they didn’t].”
Paul Hollywood added: “You have no idea this year. Absolutely. Week to week, you have no idea who’s going to win. I will tell you this though. We did have more star bakers than any other year.”
On the themes, Paul said:“We have the 1980s and we have Japan. Japan was a fascinating week as well.
We had some great bakes in there - really interesting.
"Obviously I’d just come back from Japan not long ago. And it was interesting to see their interpretation of Japanese baking...which is actually amazing. They did really well.
"I don’t remember the 80s haha. I suppose you’ve got to look at the 1980s classic bakes. We can’t go into it too much, but think party foods and work from there.”
The new series kicks off on Channel 4 next Tuesday with 12 new contestants including a Samaritan, a student and a pantomime producer.
The cast and crew all lived in a ‘bubble’ to stay safe from the coronavirus and the tent and accomodation was all in one location where everyone stayed whilst filming took place over six weeks instead of the usual filming at weekends throughout the Summer.
It means that contestants ended up saying goodbye twice when they were voted off the show.
Paul, 54, said: "There were a few tears in the tent. Yeah, inevitably, I think because they’ve probably gotten quite tight over the time they were together.
"Normally, when someone has to leave there’s an instant reaction. So sometimes it happens in front of us and sometimes when they do their interviews later they cry but yeah, you could sense there was a bit of sadness.
"And It was strange because the following day they leave the hotel and they used to drive past with all their stuff. And everybody was normally on a down day then and everyone’s waving them off."
Prue, 80, also said one positive result of the coronavirus and lockdown was that the nation was cooking and baking more from scratch.
She said: "I think is sort of ironic about this is that I think I've spent 50 years of my life boringly lecturing the nation on how they ought to cook from scratch and ought to bake with pretty little effect, frankly.
"If anything as a nation, we were doing less cooking before lockdown than we’d ever done. And now Covid has managed to do what so many of us have tried to get people to do in one dollop. Suddenly everybody's baking and cooking. It’s brilliant."
The Great British Bake Off starts on Channel 4 on Tuesday at 8pm.
